Click on the above link to download the
interview (the 1st track - although the 2nd track is a remix of it also
worth listening to) as an audio file.

[interviewee's note: There's nothing quite
like having your place set fire to by an arsonist coincide with having a
gig that you've spent the last of your money on be cancelled because the
management's afraid of you followed by being knifed by someone on the streets
followed by getting a fortune cookie with no fortune in it followed by being
awoken late at night for a radio interview.

In case you can't tell, this was a low
point in my life during which my sense of humor was a bit grim. Nonetheless,
there're some interesting bits about BalTimOre's independent arts festival,
the Ad Hoc Fiasco, & my tape label [still going as of 2014] WIdémoUTH Tapes, & "Blaster"
Al Ackerman.

In the recording I'm working from, my voice
is under-recorded (especially at 1st), very soft, & I apparently boosted
it somewhere along the line which also brought up hiss. It's often difficult
for me to understand what I'm saying. I think I must've been asleep when
he called & I yawn throughout much of the time. I've attempted to transcribe
it here but I don't go to great lengths so I leave a few parts untranscribed.
After a few minutes it becomes consistently comprehensible. - September
5, 2014 notes from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE]

[dial tone followed by touch tones followed by ringing followed by phone
picked up]

tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE: Zende bad Betoor Ahzmayesh. Rahettee!

Tim Clifford: Hello.

t,ac: Hi.

TC: Is this tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE?

t,ac: [inaudible: probably: "Mmhhmm"]

TC: Hello, my name's Tim.

t,ac: [inaudible]

TC: Yes, it is. I just talked to Richard & he gave me your
phone number here - to duscuss, uh, the Ad Hoc Fiasco.

t,ac: To discuss the Ad Hoc Fiasco?

TC: Well, yeah, that, & among other things.. Widemouth, I
dunno, projects, whatever, you'd like to tell our listeners, few though
they may be..

t,ac: Is this live?

TC: This is a live broadcast.

t,ac: I wish I could talk backwards.

TC: I wish you could too.

t,ac: So everybody [difficult to make out]

TC: either that or they'd have to record it & play it back
on a reel-to-reel. So, anyway, what.. you sound rather out-of-it, do you
have words of wisdom to impart or.. are you?

t,ac: Mmm, well I have the usual slogans: "Anything is Anything",
"Stop Normality Before It Stops You", "No More Punching
Bag Clowns" & at least one other one at the moment that I'm not
remembering..

TC: So these are all the trademarks?

t,ac: [laughs] Yeah, it's pretty bad that I can't even remember
my own slogans. The last one's a Fill-in-the-Blank [incomprehensible] [yawns..]
I could tell the story of my last week.

the outside of the building I lived in the day after the
fire

Monday night I learned that the building where I reside had a big fire
on the 1st floor & it gutted the place causing smoke damage & firemen
damage to the floors that I lived in..

close-up of the wreckage on the sidewalk

something that DID melt in my 2 floor apartment

a relevant poster on my apartment wall - now covered in
soot with traces of water rivulets from the fire hoses

a view of my bedroom after the firemen had axed in the ceiling
& tromped around

TC: That's no good.

t,ac: So, I was scheduled to have a film &/or vaudeo show
& that was cancelled partially due to paranoia on the part of the institution
it was supposed to occur in the building of..

TC: Uh-huh.

t,ac: &, then, somone insulted me on the streets & I
turned around & kicked the guy in the chest & ended up getting
knifed as a result [yawning while speaking] - all within the space of basically
2 days & then Friday night I went to a Chinese restaurant & got
a fortune cookie with no fortune in it for the 1st time in my life - which
I thought was the perfect punchline to the week.

TC: That sounds like some week.

t,ac: Yeah, I'm quite proud of it.

TC: So is this typical of your life? Or was this exceptional?

t,ac: Fortunately, it's atypical in some respects - a little
more concentrated in its violence. Friends of mine who believe in karma
think that I paid off alotof karma.

TC: So what did the person who insulted you on the street say?

t,ac: Oh he just said something about how stupid I looked. He
was drunk & the irony of it was that he was a young punk with a Mohawk.
I didn't even see who it was until I'd already turned around & kicked
him basically. [yawning]

TC: Well, for those out there who don't know you what's you hairstyle now? Is it a question mark? Or is it
something new?

t,ac: No, the Question Mark,
& the For Example, & the so-called Asymettrical Circle & the Moustaches
around my head are all gone now. I think my hair's fairly normal looking
- although my next project, one of my next projects is to get a tattoo
of a brain on my head with the edges of the brain being like fuses that're
sputtering

view of the back of my head with the finished 3D brain tattoo
(1987)

& I want to have a DNA spiral emanating from my crotch

my DNA tattoo (1986)

& crossed-bones on my chest

my crossed-bones tattoo (1986)

- all of which I think should be an amusing tattoo combination.

TC: You'd be the talk-of-the-town. I'm sure you'd be the 1st one
on your block, anyway.

t,ac: Mmm.

TC: - if nothing else. So that would be some sort of personal
satisfaction.

t,ac: Yeah.

TC: - gleaned from that..

t,ac: Maybe I could start working for a heart fund.

TC: So what's the deal with the Ad Hoc Fiasco? It says on the
flier I got that it's the "3rd Annual" - you've had 2 previously
I take it?

t,ac: Actually, Richard would've been a better person to interview
about this because I'm only very peripherally connected to it, but, yes,
it is the 3rd one & there have been 2 benefist - the 1st of which was
called "Ad Hoc Fiasco Medical Benefit", the 2nd of which was
called the "In Hoc Fiasco Medical Benefit" & [yawns]
the Fiascoes themselves are large outdoor events meant to.. uh.. be.. socially
viable for a large variety of people

TC: So, did you do performance or outdoor art or something along
those lines for the previous ones?

t,ac: Well, usually I don't have much of anything to do with
them because they're framed as art events & I don't like to associate
myself with such things - I only like to primarily frame myself as a Mad
Scientist / d composer / Sound Thinker / T ho ugh t Collector / As Been
although I've thought that as an art project it would be best to frame
myself for murder sometime - that'd be a particularly interesting art project

TC: [chortles]

t,ac: - framing myself for my own murder - if I could pull it
off - that's a project for way in the future, though, I think. Um [yawns]
although I did think last year planting mines around the park as an Ad
Hoc Fiasco project but I decided against that. This year I was thinking
of burying myself alive & leaving clues to everyone who would come
to the Fiasco as to where I would be - they woul;d have to find me by the
end of the weekend or I would suffocate [laughs] - I doubt that I'll do
that either

TC: [laughs] I certainly imagine the ideas nonetheless.

t,ac: Well, it's partially inspired by the kidnapping of a woman
that occurred many years ago. She was, um.. she was put inside an underground
cement, uh, rectangle, whatever, cube.. what's the word for a 3-dimenionsla
rectangle? [yawns] I don't know.. It might be.. There was an exhaust system
in the tomb & she was provided with water & tranquilisers &
instructions & told that she could live inside this tomb for something
like a week if she didn't move around too much or try to scream or whatever
&, uh [yawns], I think she was buried right near the motel where her
kidnappers had been staying.. I forget the deal but eventually they did
find her - fortunately for her, she didn't suffocate. I saw that as a rather
inspiring kidnapping.

TC: [laughs] That's certainly a BalTimOre legend I'd say.

t,ac: So, but anyway, well actually that kidnapping didn't occur
in BalTimOre I don't know where it was

TC: Oh I see. Sounds like something that would though.

t,ac: Well in BalTimOre if it had happened they wouldn't have
found the woman in the coffin unfortunately.. So, as far as things that've
happened at previous Fiascos: last year, a woman named Laure Drogoul rented
a cow from a farm & made a giant facsimile of a hamburger roll - actually
it was a cow & a calf &, um, this giant facsimile of a hamburger
roll was the pen for the cow & the calf but they stood inside this
facsimile of a hamburger roll & she set up a hamburger stand next to
it & sold hamburgers

TC: [?] That sounds like it would be worth the trip for that alone
- I mean, that must've been some spectacle

t,ac: Well, the hamburger roll wasn't too convincing but

TC: but aside from that

t,ac: I thought it was pretty funny & she did manage to make
up through selling hamburgers the cost of renting the cows which was fairly
expensive & then, uh, a fellow named Doug Retzler made a, uh, foam
facsimile of himself as an angel with his arms holding a video camera,
an actual video camera which had 75 feet of cable attached to it &
with the aid of helium balloons he floated it overtop the Fiasco so that
people who were holding the guide wires could move the angel around &
control somewhat how it shot the footage below &, as a part of the
footage below, there were giant letters which Richard had provided which
people could spell out messages with - [yawns] all of which was seen from
75 feet above. Did you talk with Richard about any of this?

TC: Not that much, I told him that I expected to get you because
I thought that that was your AGENT-16 handle &, uh, he said if you want
to talk to tENTATIVELY I can give you this number, so.. I didn't really
talk to him in too much detail - but, um, do you ahve musical & poetry
& other sorts of, uh, sound events going on simultaneously with this?

t,ac: Mm.. Last year there were 3 stages - one of which was for
"Christmas in July' - which is an annual party organized by "The
Severn Instritute" from Annapolis - which involves the giving away
of records by throwing them at the audience or throwing them out in UFO
fashion & another stage was for poetry & another was for music
& things were somewhat staggered but since they were a fair distance
from each other over the park [yawns] they didn't need to be too staggered..
um.. [coughs] OooHOhoh..

TC: Anyway..

t,ac: But I think that's probably enough about the Ad Hoc Fiasco
subject since you mentioned the possibility of my plugging Widemouth Tapes
which I now refer to as WI-deemo-OUTH Tapes

TC: Wi-what?

t,ac: démo, actually, WI-démo-UTH Tapes because,
uh, the 1st 26 tapes were.. that I copublished, or whatever, I refer to
as "Widemouth Tapes" & the new set that I'm putting out now
are called "démo tapes" & since "démo"
is spelled "d", "e", accent aigu , "m", "o",
& since the 3rd through 6th letters in Widemouth are also "d",
"e", "m", "o" I just put the accent aigu
on that reformed syllable so that it becomes WI-démo-UTH tapes of
which there are now 25 actually available.

TC: So you mean altogther with Widemouth & WIdémoUTH
there are 51 tapes at the moment?

t,ac: No, um, ultimately with those 2 together there will be
54 but, um, there's actually only one démo tape or WIdémoUTH
tape & there's actually only 24 currently available Widemouth Tapes
even though there're supposed to be 26 - one for eah letter of the English
alphabet, there're 28..

TC: Which? Which? Why? Have some been deleted?

t,ac: Well, one of them hasn't been put out yet although it's
been planned to be put out & another one needs to be reissued with
the assistance of the person whose tape it is..

TC: So in strict terms what's the most recent? What is the latest
one you've issued?

t,ac: "Sinnit-Nut
Hollow Earth Symposium" which is a quasi-documentary residue from
an event of the same name - 6 people went to a cave called "Nut Cave"
& stayed in the cave for 24 hours conducting a Hollow Earth Symposium
in which we discussed various Hollow Earth belieefs & premiered a 20
minute tape made by Al Ackerman in Texas

t,ac: Mm, No, basically everything's a different color now -
but it hasn't melted & it's still in one piece.

TC: Right. So is Al a prolific person as far as sound goes? Does
he put out alotof tapes/

t,ac: He's [coughs] very prolific & this tape that he made
is a "Dredradiophone" tape. I don't know if you ever heard any
of those.

TC: I wrote for "The Laughing Postman", uh, but he said
that he doesn't have the original anymore beause the person who appeared
on it, who did the voice, I guess, was, uh, some sort of neur- [drop-out]
himself that the Laughing Postman Dredradiophone Theater #1 tape was like
the only worthwhile piece of art he'd ever done in his life & he came
to Ackerman begging him to give him a copy of the tape so that he could,
you know, show them to everyone to let them know what a great creative person
he was & Ackerman said that he was so insistent & was so, was so
obsessed with the tape that he said it was the least he could do to give
him the 3 remaining copies that he had of the cassette.

t,ac: I'll try to remember to send you a copy of it.

TC: That's the one that you're referring to that you used?

t,ac: No, no, this is a new one that was called "The Sinnit-Nut
Mystery".

TC: You have the 1st one? The Laughing Postman?

t,ac: Yeah, I have that. I can send you a copy of it..

TC: Yeah, cause he has no way of sending that out now.

t,ac: He described that particular one as being what, uh, Inner
Sanctum would've looked like if the drunkern janitors would have locked
the cast in the closet & taken over & continued to drink throughout
the whole time. I think that's a very apt description.

TC: That's "The Laughing Postman"?

t,ac: Mmhhmm..

TC: That sounds good, I'd like to, uh, you know, I'll try to drop
you a blank, uh, it's, uh, I'll drop you a blank tape in the mail - just
fill it up.

TC: Yeah, yeah. But it's good to hear that you ahve that 'cause
I was interested to hear his stuff & the only thing that I know of,
besides that, is "Hamburger Lady" is his, uh, work or whatever.

t,ac: Well, now there's the Hollow Earth Symposium tape.

TC: That's going to be available through you?

t,ac: Yeah, it is available now. I'll send you a copy of that
too.

TC: So, anyway, well I want to cut this short so I won't have
to pay the station too much for the call but, um I would like you to give
the address to everyone out there - or anyone out there who might want to
write to Widemouth Tapes & tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE.